Merry Christmas!"Thus to honor the natal Festival of Himthe Unselfish incarnate, the Divinely insightedWho said unto the lip-server: Sell all that thou hast, and give it to the Poor, and follow Me; and from Whom the lip-server, having great possessions, went away exceeding sorrowful!

"An important festival in our calendar was now approaching, and preparations were made to celebrate it in various modes, and, amongst others, by a fight between a royal tiger and an elephant.

She has sung everywhere in Londonwith the Royal Choral Society at the Albert Hall, at the Handel Festival at the Crystal Palace, at the Ballad Concerts, at the Monday Popular Concerts, at Sir Charles Hallé's Concerts, and at Bristol, Chester, Leeds, Birmingham, and other leading towns.

The last step of importance, however, in the development of the Church's year was to connect these chief festivals with one another, so as to make them parts of a whole.

The joy, however, of their present deliverance made such impression on the minds of the English, that they instituted an annual festival for celebrating that great event; and it was observed in some counties even to the time of Spellman

No king, not even David or Solomon, had celebrated the festival on so grand a scale.

ad Januarium, 54, c.l.) attributes the institution of this festival to an apostolic ordinance or the injunction of a general council.

The day of the Baptist is a festival among the Mussulmans, as well as among Christians.] King Almanzor of Granada, he hath bid the trumpet sound, He hath summonded all the Moorish lords, from the hills and plains around; From vega and sierra, from Betis and Xenil, They have come with helm and cuirass of gold and twisted steel.

The Bolognese, who regard garlic as the symbol of abundance, buy it at the festival as a charm against poverty during the coming year.

I have quoted several times from its pages, Heortology, a History of Christian Festivals from their Origin to the Present Day, by Dr. Kellner, Professor of Catholic Theology in Bonn, is a translation of a text-book written for German students preparing to pass Government examinations.

You have no turkeys; you would not desecrate the festival by offering up a withered Chinese bantam, instead of the savoury grand Norfolcian holocaust, that smokes all around my nostrils at this moment from a thousand firesides.

So the conspirators were punished by the decision of the majority and a sacrifice and period of festival over them was decreed,something that had never before happened from any such cause.

"During the age of the persecutions it was scarcely possible for Christians to observe any other festival than Sunday, and so it is not surprising that the two writers who have occasion to speak of the institution of the festivals of the Church, mention only Easter and Pentecost, both of which fall on a Sunday.

It was likewise explained to me why in my visions relating to the feasts of the family of Jesus, such, for instance, as those of St. Anne, St. Joachim, St. Joseph, etc., I always saw the Church of the festival under the figure of a shoot of the vine.

Scores of thousands of the very poorest in the land flock to the monastery in September, turning the mountain into a picnic ground and the festival into a fair.

Their close relation with Itzamná is evidenced, not only in the fragmentary myth preserved by Hernandez, but quite amply in the descriptions of the rites at the close of each year and in the various festivals during the year, as narrated by Bishop Landa.

The two great shrines of the Saxon church were, however, those of St Birinus, the Apostle of Wessex, and of St Swithin, Bishop of Winchester in the ninth century, the day of whose translation, July 15th, was, till the Reformation, a universal festival throughout England.

" Again, of the rainy saint, St. Swithin, we are reminded that: "Against St. Swithin's hastie showers, The lily white reigns queen of the flowers" A festival around which so much curious lore has clustered.

"It is necessary," she said, "that my daughter should give a public festival before her departure for Spain, and that the Parisians should remember a Princess who is about to be lost to France.

"He did not much frequent social festivals after this failure, but he always told the story with satisfaction and a quiet smile.